Role of Electronic Word of Mouth in Creating Gendered-Moral Discourse: Analysis of three Urdu-Hindi Women-Centric Web Series

The study focused on the opinions of online reviewers' vis-à-vis content of three controversial urdu-hindi women-centric web series to understand the role of electronic word of mouth in creating a gendered-moral discourse. The three web series selected for the study were Churails, Bombay Begums, and Four More Shots Please. A total of 175 reviews on the selected web series available on Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and YouTube were analyzed. The study found that, in addition to establishing incorrect standards for women empowerment, the reviewers severely reprimanded the filmmakers for their pseudo-feminist and radical perspective on feminism, which celebrated immoral actions in the name of women empowerment. The critics objected to the web series being a feminist agenda against men by pointing out the two extreme portrayals of men and women battling sexism in their own extreme ways, which the reviewers deemed incorrect. The false representation of the setting, the makers' disregard for people's sensibilities and boundaries, and contentious features in the characters' lifestyles were also condemned. The study concludes that content creators need to keep the religious and cultural sensitivities of theirbroader audience in mind when designing content so that the message can be communicated in an effective and unblemished way.